Ten Years of Abu Ghraib

On April 30, 2004, a decade ago this week, The New Yorker published a story on its Web site called “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” by Seymour M. Hersh. (It appeared in print in the issue of May 10, 2004.) The Abu Ghraib scandal had begun to break two days earlier, when CBS News ran a report with pictures of American soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq, putting them in naked poses and mocking them. The New Yorker had more images, and something else:

A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib.

Here is a selection of The New Yorker’s coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal and its aftermath: